Just installed it and yelled “Holy shit!”. I didnt realize it was this bad already. I only thought there were two in my area. This is fkn nuts. We are indeed in a surveillance state.
We have been for at least thirteen years. Remember Snowden?
Yeah but at least before they were trying to hide it. Now theyre openly threatening us with it
This, together with datacenters, will be dystopia. I suggest you spread this information to ordinary people who work in congress, and go on news and talk about it. If you can.
Wow. Bravo mapquest team. I wish they would come on here and speak to their brand renewal.
You can help too!!
Check out DeFlock, and by all means, come join us on OpenStreetMap. It looks like about 400–500 cameras have been added in the last few days.
If there’s anything I can personally do to help you (yes, you, reading this) get involved with OSM – even just a pep talk – I’ll do whatever I can. There are a million different ways you can help, regardless of if you’re in Paris reading the WikiHow for heisting the Louvre or stranded in the wilderness using your last five minutes of battery to browse Lemmy.
Source: Reasonably longtime user and contributor.
Unfortunately I really wouldn’t trust the numbers on new cameras. In my area most are already mapped and there’s a steady stream of misidentified cameras being added. Stuff like DOT and traffic light cameras.
I think the new companies that are like Flock, but not Flock, are starting to incorporate all the cameras. Those are probably in the Flock system.
Unfortunately with that now including traffic cams they are impossible to avoid. I couldn’t even make it to a gas station without going through 3 intersections
Question, because I’m not finding much information on this. Supposedly we can incorporate overlays from OSM into CoMaps that shows Flock camera locations on our routes. Would you have any information on how to do this or a resource that could show me how? Thanks in advance.
I wish I did. :(
I’ve never heard anything about this. In fact, I’ve never heard of overlays on CoMaps generally. My only guess is that maybe the rumor is related to OsmAnd, which does let you create custom overlays given a URL source.
I only use CoMaps on desktop, which is to say not very often, so I’m a lot less familiar with it. Sorry!
No problem. Thanks for answering. I found something saying that it does work with CoMaps by enabling surveillance poi as a custom overlay in CoMaps and to do that you import that data from openstreetmap. You’re probably right that it was for OSMand. I will try and find out more. Thanks again for answering.
Adding “no plate readers” routing like “avoid tolls” would be interesting. Probably impossible in some cities, but still it would be enlightening at the very least.
Looking just at my small city (100k) id say it’s nearly impossible.
TIL that MapQuest still exists
Recently in the news for defying Trump’s “Lake America” BS.
Oh, chihuahua!
Kinda? They use osm data and osm didn’t change the name so neither did map quest.
They created a whole website to mock the decision. Just like they did with the Gulf.
And now Mapquest is just adding UI that supports OSM data. A good portion of their roadmap is just vibe coding UI for OSM features that already exist.
Initially they did for the Gulf of Mexico too, just a matter of time til they “correct” back to approved government posting stateside
“Initially” makes it sound like they eventually capitulated, which they haven’t
It still says gulf of mexico. Just checked from a US IP address.
It went to one of most downloaded apps after Google renamed lake ontario simply because of the angry Canadians (of which I am now a MapQuest user)
If MapQuest could get public transit directions as good as Google, I’d drop them completely.
If MapQuest could keep their location listing up to date I’d 100% make the switch. I went to a small brewery a month ago and it took me to their previous location, which they moved out of…2 years ago
They might be using OpenStreetMap to populate their map. If that’s the case, you should consider updating the map yourself! I update OSM all the time when I go to new places or find discrepancies in the map vs. reality.
If you contribute something like 30 edits per month (sounds like a lot but if you start adding unmarked footpaths, roads or building footprints to the map you can hit 30 edits in a matter of minutes) you can get free OSMand Pro, a map app for Android. Every time I go on a trip I make sure to hit the edit threshold to grant me Pro access for the month. Lots of great features!
Yeah I was using it a bit myself to see how alternatives to Google Maps would work, and it really messed up on the way to a barbershop. It was maybe a previous location for them too, but I also knew this place’s immediately previous location which was sort of in an alley behind their current place. The other one? Who knows, but it was miles off.
Does the Transit app work in your city by any chance?
people also need to look at axion/axon , motorola, they definitely are using those now too.
This is dope, BUT Mapquest is just a wrapper for OpenStreetMaps, and this is data that you get for free with OSM.
Also, after install, Mapquest immediately asks to start tracking your behavior for targeted marketing shit.
Mapquest probably doesn’t actually give a shit privacy or fighting authoritarians. They just want a cheap and free data set, and the cheapest thing available automatically has LPR data and doesn’t rename bodies of water to “America.”
I’ve heard that said a few times but I have used both and MapQuest is infinitely more accurate and usable. I tried osm first and half the addresses I typed in couldn’t be found unless it were a major city. MapQuest I have not had that problem so they either use a different data source or they amalgamate multiple sources for more functionality.
Most likely they mirror the data from OSM and then use their own search algorithm, this is what most OSM based apps do
Not everyone cares about that
Oh shit, I didn’t realize OSM had a Flock locator. Is it working as a layer in OsmAnd yet? I’ll check…
EDIT: Nope, or at least I couldn’t find it.
The data is in there. You just need an OSM client that exposes it. DeFlock, mapcomplete, Mapquest, etc.
Also not in CoMaps yet. FlockHopper works alright.
Now if only MapQuest could track police down to the last inspector and beat officer.
W after W from MapQuest.
MapQuest seems to be the Mamdani of map apps. They just keep cranking out W after W
Why can I not find this setting in my app?
Edit: i found it.
The square stack under the center icon (bottom right of map) -> toggle surveillance
I was expecting it to be under settings for some reason. Thanks!
Another W for MapQuest
Will it navigate around them? Does it show other manufacturers such as Axon?
Waze does this in my neighborhood. All are labeled as police cameras.
Yeah, I’m not giving my data to Israel and letting them surveil me instead.
Commenting to boost this.
Good for MapQuest for making statements about these things, but don’t people know about Waze already?
Nice to see some non alphabet competition though.
or you can just get OsmAnd/Comaps/Organic Maps which use open street maps which is where mapquest gets this data
Well I’m glad somebody’s doing it because DeFlock’s app was designed by someone who doesn’t understand UX. It’s so clunky and unintuitive. Hell, the “navigation” feature doesn’t actually give you turn-by-turn directions FFS!
